In the further development of modern semiconductor memory technologies, in order to achieve a highest possible integration density whilst at the same time increasing or maintaining a high processing speed and sufficient functional integrity, novel memory concepts are also being investigated and developed further in addition to typical silicon technologies in the area of nonvolatile memory devices. In the case of so-called resistively switching memory cells, different conductivity states, which are assigned to different information states, can be formed in a memory material that inherently has poor electrical conductivity, e.g., in a solid electrolyte or in a chalcogenide material, by introducing one or more activating species in the context of an activation operation.
In known memory concepts of this type, what is critical for the operating time or cycle time between a storage operation and an erasure operation is that period of time which is required to form the conductivity state, e.g., via the formation of corresponding current paths, and also that period of time which is necessary to withdraw or erase a conductivity state, e.g., by removing or deconstructing an existing current path.
For these and other reasons there is a need for the present invention.